It is known to provide shopper-tracking systems to use in locating a shopper within a shopping location. Shopper tracking systems typically employ portable electronic devices such as, for example, customer service terminals (CSTs) or portable point-of-sale (POS) terminals that display sales and marketing information to the shopper, and may in some cases allow the user to tabulate and purchase items without passing through a stationary checkout location.
There are many advantages to knowing a shopper's current location as well as the path that the shopper walked in reaching the particular location. Among these advantages are special retail options available to the shopper near the current location may be easily presented on the portable device, and directions may be provided the shopper for moving to a desired product's location when the shopper's present location is known.
Shopper-tracking systems that rely on triangulation with various beacons installed throughout the shopping establishment to pinpoint a shopper's location do exist. Such systems require an infrastructure investment to install and maintain the multitude of beacons. Other systems locate a shopper by use of a universal product code (UPC) scanner incorporated into the portable device. When the shopper scans the UPC barcode, the system locates the shopper in the shopping establishment where such products are available for selection. Such a system cannot track a precise shopping path taken by the user, and it does not know the shopper's location absent the user scanning a UPC code.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method and system for easily tracking a shopper's current location as the shopper moves through a store without requiring installation of wireless location systems for triangulation or constant scanning of merchandise. The present invention addresses such a need.